The WSJ published an article today online.

According to the article, Elwar was *only* living in the seastead, did not own it, nor choose the location. He apparently was planning on investing in the company that sells them, but that never materialized. The Thai government also towed the seastead back to land early last week.

I searched for his facebook, and Elwar posted that he and his wife are safe, and is avoiding social media to avoid making a mistake that will reveal his location.

I think when someone engages in multiple transgressions over a period of years, a "promise" not to do it again is not credible.

More importantly, when there is a million dollars plus unaccounted for (IMO stolen), this is not something that should be forgiven.

Where did you meet this person? Who is gianluca?

I searched that telegram name LubnarahmanC last night and found a twitter handle LORDSTYLE007, but could not find a forum account associated with either the twitter handle or the telegram handle.

With regards to cheating campaigns, I believe your conclusion is a stretch of reality. At the end of the day advertising is being provided in exchange for payment. The fact that one person advertises "more" for a campaign unknowingly to the company (or the campaign manager) does not materially affect what the company receives. This if off topic here, and this discussion can be moved to a new thread if necessary.

In general, for other reasons a tags are given, the person can remediate the underlying issue to have the tag removed, and for scam attempts, warnings are often given so if someone does not understand what they are doing appears to be a scam attempt, they have a chance to stop. For example when this person resolve the scam accusation against him to his trading partner's satisfaction, his tags were removed, and newer users who try to take out no collateral loans are often warned that what they are doing appears to be a scam attempt and are given a chance to lock their thread to avoid getting a tag. However this guy did not receive DT negative trust until >1.5 years after the fact, when he (says) didn't go through with the transaction (I believe ThePharmacist was not on DT when he left his rating). However I don't see any real way to remediate his actions if he had gone through with the transaction.

I believe creating the rule that prohibits account trading will stop the majority of sales. I believe most people who engage in this kind of business do so because it is explicitly allowed.

For those that continue trading forum accounts despite a rule prohibiting such trading, to confirm that a person is in fact selling accounts, they could look at IP addresses/browser fingerprints of the person, and when they see the account being used by a distinct second person (with other accounts) with a different IP address/browser fingerprint, the administration will know the person is selling accounts. From there, the administration can lock the sellers other accounts whose IP address/browser fingerprint has changed/separated from the seller, so that all the accounts he sold are now inaccessible to the buyers; a warning can be given to the seller to stop dealing in forum accounts, and if it continues escalating bans can be issued. The first warning should be sufficient because the seller can continue earning advertising revenue even if they cannot sell them, and a ban would prevent that.

In the interest of fairness, it is best to not punish someone for something they did, when as of when they did the action, the action was not against the rules.

This is one reason why I am suggesting one of the above two rules be implemented. In addition to forum sales being explicitly allowed, a user who does not follow forum politics may see a high ranking/high trust person trading a forum account and assume this is an acceptable practice.

As an FYI, some people can potentially learn about bitcoin outside of the forum. There are many resources that people can educate themselves.

The punishment doesn't need to be a permaban for the first instance of someone breaking the rules. The only rule that will result in a permaban after a single violation is the spreading of malware. When someone breaks all other rules, they are given several warnings, and if warnings are ignored, they are issued a short temp ban, and if it continues, a longer temp ban is issued, and this continues until a permaban is eventually issued.

If there is clear evidence an account is sold, it can be locked, but not banned so that the buyer cannot use the purchased account but can use any other accounts they have.
The administration has tagged alt accounts of some who have been clearly shown to be a scammer in the past. There are also forum features, such as the "trade with extreme caution" warning that make it difficult for a scammer to continue trading, while still being able to participate in discussions.

Doing this can lead to curruption.

That would be one compromise.
Yes, the level of certainty should be very high, and I think the purchased account in question should be locked, not banned, so the person who bought the account can continue to participate in the forum. However after continuing to purchase accounts after given sufficient number of warnings, bans should be issued.

I would point out that it is a very small group of people who are currently tagging accounts.

As it stands now, forum account sales are explicitly allowed, but many people on DT are giving negative trust to those who either have attempted (successfully or otherwise) to buy or sell forum accounts, sometimes many months or years after the fact. To make matters worse, certain forum members are doing this in the open without consequence.

The above two facts are in conflict, and the existence of both are harming many forum members. I have seen countless forum members have their reputations ruined after they reviewed the forum rules, and possibly the recent activity of prominent forum members who show up as having high trust/merit stats, try to engage in transaction consistent with what is reasonably based on their above observations, and end up with their reputations destroyed without a warning to amend their behavior.

The above two facts are harming countless forum members who I believe are acting in good faith, for no reason, and has the same effect as excluding these forum members from the community for no reason.

As a result of the above, one of the two below rule changes needs to be implemented:
*Forum account sales are banned, effective x date in the near future. If it is determined ownership of an account transferred after x date, the account will be permanently locked, and all people involved in the transaction (buyer seller) will be considered for a ban
*Leaving (DT) negative trust for engaging in a forum account sale transaction is prohibited, which will be applied retroactively. If this rule is implemented, forum members should remove these ratings on their own, however if they do not, the ratings should be removed by the administration (which will include ratings left after the rule is effective), and if someone leaves ratings for this reason (or closely related enough to reasonably conclude the root cause is a forum account transaction), they will be considered for a ban.

Whichever of the above is implemented, the rule needs to be actually enforced by the administration.

In either case, some freedoms will be infringed upon, however this is superior to the alternative of many people being harmed by the above referenced conflict. The current implementation of both above facts arguably infringes on a greater amount of freedoms.

I have no financial stake in the outcome of the above, current or anticipated. However I do have an opinion as to which option would be less intrusive, but I will not state it. There are arguments for and against both of the above rule changes.

I have added a poll for forum members to voice an opinion.

edit:

for those that say "scamming is allowed" I would respond by saying it is not explicitly allowed per forum rules. The forum will not moderate scams, while forum account sales are explicitly allowed per forum rules. The administration has previously tagged alt accounts of scammers when the evidence was clear they are a scammer.

I am interested to see the opinions of certain forum members.

My point is valid, and does appear to be in relation to this thread.

Two very relevant quotes in the OP:

 

It is disappointing to see OgNasty remove his negative ratings against lauda considering lauda's extortion scheme, escrow transaction in which he was not willing to cover losses his incompetence caused, and his separate escrow transaction in which there are millions of dollars unaccounted for.

RE topic: Obviously not. The current implementation of the trust system is basically the same as the chinese social credit score system. One post is not going to change that.

edit:
This quote is especially relevant:

How frequently is this happening? Maybe you can publish a list of who wiped their list (and who wiped all their inclusions) each week on loyce.club

I have found that it is very difficult to create a good trust list, even if you have only a small number of people on your list. There are a fairly large number of people who I have found that I am willing to trust their ratings, but are very bad at creating a trust list of their own. As you have seen with the very large number of trust exclusions in your trust network, someone with a fairly small list will likely come across a large number of people in their trust network whose ratings they don't trust -- if someone is forced to add enough people to their exclusions, they will eventually give up and go back to using DT.

Merit is supposed to be given to posts that are "objectively high-quality" although the forum will not be directly moderating this, except for merit sources.

If the OP believes someone should not be a merit source, they can start a discussion on the matter. The same is true in regards to someone being on DT1. I posted my opinion above, and I do not think it should be disallowed to discuss anyone's position as either a merit source or being on DT1. If you believe LFC_Bitcoin should be a merit source, and/or on DT1, you should give reasons to back up your case for him having these position.

@LFC_Bitcoin -- your post seems to have disappeared before I could quote it, however this thread is not posted in Meta, and the OP may or may not be CH, but I don't think that matters one way or another. If you believe you should have these positions, you should state why. If your posts with actual arguments are getting deleted, you can create a new, unmoderated thread to state your arguments.

Their TOS say that any dispute between you (their customer) and them are governed by Costa Rica law. I would say chances are they are incorporated in Costa Rica, but this may or may not be the case. I am not familiar with EU tax law, but I read this article, and it looks like European countries tax casino's gambling profits very heavily.

Anyway, I would be surprised if Nitrogensports has an actual office anywhere, and their servers are likely hosted by third parties. I would presume they don't want any of their executives/owners receiving parcels in the mail. It is for these collective reasons that I speculate they will not give you a direct answer.

I don't think the OP is saying he believes LBC_Bitcoin is breaking any forum rules. I believe his argument is that he believes LFC_Bitcoin's posts are collectively not deserving of the 600+ merit he has received, his status as a merit source and his status as being on DT1. 

Yes, someone creating a thread soliciting suggestions for services would get around the "off topic" problem.

My solution above regarding forcing threads to remain unlocked for a period of time would solve most of the problems regarding fake vouches.

You can also open a scam accusation, naming the forum handle, the URL of the service and/or contact information (eg telegram handle), so they will show up on google search results. 

I looked at a handful of LFC_Bitcoin's posts he recently received merit on, and IMO they are probably not merit-worthy. A lot of his recent received merit is from posts in the WO thread. Perhaps he received merit from his friends, or perhaps he received merit because he is a merit source.

I haven't looked into the posts he has sent merit to, so I cannot comment on his being a merit source.

I agree it is bizarre he is on DT1.

If you look at that guys post history, I would say it probably is.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capitalism/comments/bagpv2/this_is_fine/ekdhf0k/

This clearly was not sorted out. OgNasty posted evidence Vod was using the trust system for personal reasons, and Vod, having a history of removing negative trust when threatened with being excluded from the DT system, was forced to remove the negative trust he left for OgN.

I don't know if the threat of manually excluding a person from DT will ever be made good on. Based on how long this has been going on, I think probably not.

The posts advertising, and vouching for the competitor (or "competitor" if they are alts) would be off topic, and should be deleted if reported.

I do agree there should be limits as to how frequently a thread can be unlocked. Perhaps one solution would be that once a thread has been locked twice in one month that if someone other than the OP makes a post in the thread, it can only be locked 4 hours after it was last unlocked.

I think the current algorithm is to prevent people like you from causing this warning being displayed for non-scammer reasons. 

If you are claiming to be right, I would say that a broken clock is correct for two minutes every day.

What happened to bitfinex does not at all match what you were saying.

The biggest problem with your proposal is UBI. You are proposing a "grossed up" figure of what someone would need to receive to live on the poverty line. However someone living above the poverty line would receive government benefits (welfare):

Medicare/Medicaid pay below (well under) market rates for healthcare, but if these programs are eliminated, those who would normally receive benefits under these programs would need to pay market rates. The annual premiums for an unsubsidized health insurance plan is between $4700 and $12,800 per year (for a single person), depending on, primarily the deductible. At the low end, someone should expect to pay about a total of $5,000 in healthcare costs per year, per person. This would include the cost of health insurance and a small amount of out of pocket expenses. This amount would be for a generally healthy person.

The annual food stamp benefit is around $2,000 per person (based on a 3 person household).

The EITC is ~$3,500 with one child, or about $1,175 (rounded up to $2,000/year) per person assuming two parents and one child. It is ~$5,800 with two children, or $1,450/person with two parents. Budget assumptions need to be at least 1 child/person, otherwise the population would shrink, which would cause other budget problems.

The above three programs alone are valued at approximately $9,000 per year, and it is not uncommon for a working family to be eligible for all three of the above programs.

For someone that is not working, or only earning a very little amount, the additional government benefits will far exceed the UBI amount. Most states pay between $300 and $500/week in unemployment benefits. Assuming a $400/week benefit per working adult, or $200/week/person, (based on two working adults and two children) works out to $10,400/year. Someone on SSDI will receive ~$14,800 per year, or ~$7,400/person (based on two working adults and two children).

The above covers the majority of Federal Welfare spending that UBI would replace. In order for UBI to work the cost of healthcare would need to be added to the annual benefit amount.

The problem with UBI when the majority of a population can work is those on the low end of the income spectrum will effectively be subsidizing those who are "rich". The purpose of welfare programs is to help the needy when they are most vulnerable, not to give money to everyone, regardless of need. Ideally, the government will create circumstances in which the need for various welfare programs is short lives and unusual.

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Taxes -

The biggest owner of land is the federal government, which cannot raise money by taxing itself. I haven't looked into your figures closely, but I suspect the claimed revenue from a property tax is overstated.

The Net Present Value of any asset is the current value (discounted value) of all future cash flows the asset will generate. If an asset will incur additional costs it did not previously incur, then its value will decline, all else being equal. Imposing a tax on real property will cause its value to decline, so you would need to either impose a higher tax rate, or budget for less revenue.

A sales tax is also difficult to enforce, and not all sales taxes due are paid by businesses. If someone is paying in cash (or crypto), a business could simply not report this as a sale, or they could report they gave a non-existent discount to pay less sales taxes. The incentives to do this would be large with a 55% sales tax rate.

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Regulations -

I agree most regulations are harmful, but some are not.

Wage and hour laws (regulations) prevent an employer from offering high wages to employees for temporary work, only to not pay them. They also prevent employers who are going out of business from not paying employees for work performed immidiately prior to the business closing. Probably most importantly, they prevent an employer who has vastly more power than an employee from unilaterally changing the terms of an agreement without real (not forced) consent of the employee after work has been performed.

Child labor laws prevent young children (who lack the ability to understand the consequences of their decisions) from being abused in the labor market, and remove most disincentives of young children from completing basic education, which benefit society in the long run, and will benefit the child greatly in the long run, while only removing a very small amount of benefit to the child in the short run.  

Labor safety laws (OSHA) force employers to provide a safe working environment to employees. Employees generally lack the ability to evaluate the safety of their work on an individual level, and employers frequently lack the resources to pay for judgements resulting from injuries/deaths of employees if something goes massively wrong -- the employer would simply go out of business/bankrupt.

When implemented property, minimum wage laws will prevent employees from being abused during an economic downturn, which will make it more difficult for the economy to recover, which is bad for everyone. The current attempts to make the minimum wage a "living wage" is nothing but harmful to workers.

In general, a regulation that protects a person from themselves is bad, and a regulation that meet the all below criteria are good (there may be others):
*Protecting a person from being taken advantage of by someone with great strength/influence
*Does not unreasonably impede on the free market
*does not prevent a person from entering into an agreement with someone they would normally want to enter into when not under duress.

What you describe would be off topic. You should report those posts and they should be deleted.